


Hold Your Colour

by HoloXam



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: (maybe), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Crack Treated Seriously, Drift Side Effects, Getting Back Together, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Possessed Newton Geiszler, Post-Movie: Pacific Rim (2013), Psychological Horror, Rockstar Newton Geiszler, Romance, Substance Abuse, semi-uprising compliant, unhealthy relationship dynamics, weird kaiju drugs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-01-24 15:38:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18574459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoloXam/pseuds/HoloXam
Summary: “Say something, man. Why are you here? What do you want?”“I don't know,” Hermann whispers, barely audible above the sound of blood rushing in his ears. He never wants to see Newton again. He wants to shove him against the wall and smash his mouth against those unreasonably pink lips. He wants to slap him across the face and leave, he wants to stay, stay, stay. He wants to scream.He does none of these things.When Newton reaches out to Hermann three years after the Breach was closed, Hermann is eager yet wary to reunite. But Newton is changed by his continued drifting with the alien hivemind, and hunted by the press.Will they ever get a moment alone?[A Notting Hill-inspired AU. I have nothing to say for myself.][Content warning: MIND-FUCKING ALIENS, drug and alcohol abuse, and toxic relationship dynamics]





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lvslie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lvslie/gifts).



> Hi! I'm trying out a new approach to fic writing, which is posting a wip as I go along. Updates are sure to be erratic, but let's see how it goes. 
> 
> This is for Leslie, who has APPROVED of Notting Hill-AUs.

**[This is a love story](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM07HYSGVho).**

_Queers, Ladies, Cryptids and Dudes_  
_We understand that you_  
_Have come tonight_  
_To bear witness to the sound_  
_Of drum_  
_And_  
_Bass_

_We regret to announce_  
_That this is not the case_  
_As instead_  
_We come tonight to bring you_  
_The sonic recreation of the end of the world._

_Prepare_  
_To hold_  
_Your_  
_Colour_

**prologue**

 

**(2028)**

 

_(Hermann)_

   
The rain is heavy.

Street's deserted.

The self-driving cab is waiting at the curb in front of an alleyway flower shop, and politely pops the door open for Hermann when he ducks out from under the awning and rushes into the car. His cane goes in the backseat with some trouble, and the car automatically accommodates the length of his legs by sliding the passenger seat slightly backwards.

“Thank you,” he says to it. The bouquet is awkward in his lap, too big, and crinkly in the baby blue plastic foil, wet with raindrops even from the short dash from the shopfront to the curb.

A cheerful, metallic voice greets him.

“Welcome to Taxi Hong Kong. Please select a destination.”

Hermann closes his eyes and leans back in the leathery seat. Of all the things he imagined—

“For map selection, press anywhere on the screen.”

“Would you give me a moment?” Hermann snaps, and the car falls silent. Hermann breathes out slowly in an attempt to quench the sudden mounting panic in his chest. He puts the dripping bouquet in the empty driver’s seat, and turns the rearview mirror towards himself. From the inner pocket of his jacket, he produces a handkerchief and dries the rain off his face. His hair is rather wet; he should have brought an umbrella. Nothing do be done about that now, so he will have to live with the unfortunate way the ends tend to curl when drying off unsupervised.

He takes a moment to study his own face. The wrinkles around his eyes are becoming more pronounced, and his cheeks seem hollower than ever, even though he’s under considerably less stress than back during the Kaiju War.

His lips are dry when he runs his fingers over the wideness of his mouth, and Hermann frowns at his reflection. He is unaccustomed with his own face, with the curling strands of hair smattered over his forehead, with the wide-blown brown eyes staring as if they’d seen a ghost.

Well. Maybe they have.

The car’s touch screen dashboard lights up again, and the polite, metallic voice returns.

“Welcome to Taxi Hong Kong. Please select a destination. For map selection, press anywhere on the screen.”

“All _right,”_ Hermann sneers, shoving the mirror back towards the driver’s seat. “Take me to the Ritz-Carlton.”

 

* * *

 

_(Newt)_

 

Sometimes, when Newt’s able to distinguish between himself and the hivemind for more than a minute, he wonders why the _fuck_ the aliens are so keen on getting Hermann onboard.

Sure, Hermann’s a brilliant mind, and two brilliant minds are better than one and all that, but it doesn’t really seem to be the reason behind it.

Not that the hivemind ever really displays _any_ sort of reason that Newt—real, human Newt—is able to really comprehend, but since there’s hardly any distinction between himself and the hive, there’s a lot of things he grasps and doesn’t grasp at the same time.

It is hard, though. Figuring out which thoughts are physically original to Newt’s brain, and which thoughts originate in the desires of the alien part of him, in the consciousness that is simultaneously incomprehensible and, by now, his basic nature.

The problem, Newt supposes, is that Newt's brain works like a filter for the alien thoughts, so a piece of information from the anteverse will always come out Newt-shaped, and, if his personal experience and knowledge ever see the light of day in the anteverse, it will have lost all the humanity there ever was to it.

But, Newt knows what he knows because they know, and they know what he knows, and it is only when the drifting is infrequent that it doesn't feel like the connection is live.

So who had the idea to contact Hermann while Newt is in Hong Kong?

Why are the aliens interested?

Newt swills the scotch around in the crystal tumbler and stares out on the rain. Hong Kong is drowning in it, almost monochrome in the afternoon gloom, made bloody by the colour of his shades. It feels like home. 

“Yeah, I'm going back to science,” he says with a grin, turning his back to the floor-to-ceiling window. He flashes his teeth. “Rock’n’roll’s been awesome, but my true calling’s always been engineering. Green tech, baby—I didn't save the planet just to watch the human race fuck it up one more time. So Imma promote this bad boy for the next three months, and then it's back to the lab.”

The interviewer—a young woman with tattoos winding up around her left arm—smiles at him. She admires him; Newt's the _man._

“You’ve been pretty vocal about climate change recently, and it played a major role on your last record. Is that a theme on the new album, or do we get to see a brand new Newt Geiszler?”

Newt smiles back, and walks up and sits down across from her.

It makes sense to him that _he_ wants Hermann around. But the alien overlords, what's their agenda? Are they, actually, able to hide something from him? Now that's a chilling idea—or it _would_ be, if Newt was still capable of being scared.

He’s not, though. There's too much hive in him to be truly afraid of anything.

“You know,” he says, leaning in conspiratorially, catching the journalist’s eye, “I’m all brand new, all the time.” He winks at her, knowing that it's just discernible through his coloured lenses. She wets her lower lip with her tongue. _Damn,_ Newt's got it these days. “But this one, it deals with the oldest story in the book: It's all about heartache.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I write better when my ego is boosted, so feel free to comment or kudo or come yell at me (@holoxam) on twitter or on tumblr. 
> 
>  
> 
> _To be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermann goes to see Newton.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know. It's been 84 years. Note that I've had to change the rating - that doesn't apply for this chapter, but wait. There's more. :)

_You_  
_look as good as the day I met you_  
_I forget just why I left you,_  
_[I was insane](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT2_F-1esPk)_

 

 

_(Hermann)_

 

It is raining even heavier when Hermann's cab halts at the entrance to the Ritz-Carlton hotel. From inside the cab, he cannot see how tall the building is, but he knows it dwarves even a jaeger. A more sentimental character than Hermann would perhaps call it a miracle that the building survived the Kaiju war with only minor damage—Hermann calls it a statistical outlier, and shakes his head at the human desire for the sky. It’s not that he doesn't understand it, but rather that the idea of that desire comes with the sour tang of disillusionment. 

The cab announces his balance, simultaneously in its cheerfully coded robotic voice and brightly coloured numbers on the dashboard. He beebs his credit card on the dash, and declines a receipt. 

“Thank you for choosing Taxi Hong Kong. We would like to know how you liked your ride today. Complete this three-question survey, and enter the competition to win a—”

Hermann retrieves his cane from the back seat and collects his flowers, before he shoves the car door open and braces the rain. 

A gush of wind makes his coat flap around his legs and almost tears the bouquet from his hands. Hermann halts, defiant against even the weather, and looks up. Raindrops splatter against his bare face, and he can feel edges of his sweater dampening beneath his coat. The top of the hotel disappears in low-hanging charcoal-grey clouds. For a second, the world lights up when a green bolt of lightning zig-zags across the sky. Hermann counts silently, one-two-three, two-two-three, three-two-three, until the sound of thunder reaches him. 

The rumbling brings him back to his senses, and he realises with some regret that he once again is dripping wet. He squares his shoulders and enters the building. 

Access to the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong is found by a 102-floor elevator ride.

Hermann steps in along with a younger woman who’s got a press-card in a chain around her neck. She presses the button for the lobby, and they begin their ascend in silence. A drop of rain drips from a strand of his hair and down onto the bridge of his nose, from where it rolls down to the tip and drips to the floor. Hermann chucks the flowers under his arm and smoothes his hair back. He eyes his reflection in the shiny brass surface of the elevator door and shakes his head. It’s not a good look. Why didn’t he choose a good look?

It has been a while since he has thought about Newton Geiszler in more than passing.

A little more than three years ago, Newton pulled out his belongings from the lab, told Hermann he was leaving the PPDC for good, and walked right out of his life and into an airplane bound for somewhere else. No forwarding address, phone number disconnected, PPDC-issued email address deactivated, no response when inquiring on n.geiszler@gmail.com, no response from kaijunewt@hotmail.com, nothing on facebook, nothing on twitter, nothing on instagram, no nothing nowhere. Emergency contact records wiped, the only possible lead being an old phone number for one Monica Schwartz, left on a yellow post-it note forgotten under Newton’s old bunk.

He remained nothing but a ghost for several months to come. Nobody knew where he had gone, or what he was doing. It stung, heavily, a different kind of grief than the grief for the dead, the sort of grief mixed with anger and betrayal and shame for ever thinking that the man had been genuine in his affection. They had been lovers, for a while. They had been inseparable longer.  
The grief was worsened by the disturbing and ubiquitous presence of Newton-esque thoughts and actions in Hermann’s daily life, the obvious yet undefinable alteration of Hermann’s basic nature, the irreversible change to his personality born from the drift.

Hermann did not realize the extent of this shift in personality until he was looking over a collection of handwritten notes on a joint report from 2023 that he and Newton had handed back and forth with increasingly hostile comments on each other’s revisions, and he no longer recognised either handwriting as exclusively his own.

Comparison with recent entries in his private lab notebook brought no definite conclusion, as his own written words seemed to draw on both writing paradigms—T’s resembling one convention, the swung on G’s and J’s and Y’s another, capital A’s rounded while capital E’s were sharp. Other letters seemed to draw simultaneously on both or neither influence, no longer resembling either his own or Newton’s penmanship in the slightest.

And then there was the doodling. And the arrows in place of conjunctions. The exclamation marks and the occasional excessive use of question marks. Hermann looked back in his old, meticulously ordered notebooks and didn’t fully recognise himself. He looked at Newton’s notes, chaotic to the point of incomprehensible, and recognised more than he cared to admit.

He found himself drumming his fingers on knees and thighs and tabletops, humming tunes he never learned but now knew intimately, found himself laughing desperately, and hollering at people down the hall like he had never done anything else in his life.

He dreamed of long destroyed bridges, of the view of Hong Kong from space, of deep waters and women’s marches he had never attended, but most of all he dreamed about Newton, about Newton coming back, about Newton walking through the lab doors with a haunted look on his face, saying “I can’t breathe without you,” before kissing him soundly, passionately.

The latter were the worst, by far, because the nightmares were only remnants of the collective of minds he and Newton had jammed themselves into. They were nothing but battle scars, horrifying and crushing as they were, but at least they made sense to him. Wounds that, with proper treatment, at least could be mended. The war had its toll on his mind, but at least it was over. At least, at _least_ the enemy was gone, and there was some kind of honor in having put his own life on the line to achieve that.

The dreams of Newton, on the other hand, made Hermann wish he was entirely without consciousness, a reminder of a ridiculous hope squashed deep into the dark, a reminder of the 13 years of his life spent chasing an idea, an idea of a man, an idea of what he and Newton could and would have been, an idea that turned into a mirage, then into a nightmare.

Was it shame, that foul taste on his tongue, that brittle feeling in his chest?

Was it truth, when he sat at the steel tables in the mess, looking down on his soggy beans, thinking, “It would be easier if he had died”?

Was it anger, when he ripped up the letters Newton had sent him, blocked his social media pages from all of his electronic devices, and moved out of the Shatterdome and into Hong Kong, because it was clear that Newton would not return?

Or was it just Newton? Bloody, fucking Newton.

Then one day, when the sweltering summer of 2026 was coming to an end, when numbness had all but replaced the need to look twice into every passing vehicle, when Hermann no longer would wake up in the morning and wish for coffee with a side of death, and when he had set himself up in a two-bedroom flat in the Hong Kong bone slums with a tenant called Nadia, Tendo Choi sent Hermann a link to a popular news article, along with the cryptic message, _‘He lives!’_

In the article were pictures of Newton standing atop some building with an acoustic guitar in hand, serious and pensive in some, goofy in others, airbrushed and stylish and—frankly—unrecognisable in all of them, and the headline said ‘World-Saving Scientist Newt Geiszler Kick-Starts Music Career With The Post-Apocalyptic Punk Rock Record You’ve Been Waiting For’.

Hermann knew that Newton had been in a band back in his university days. He also knew that Newton had fantasised about fame and glory and "being a rockstar". 

Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that it would be any success. 

 _I thought you should hear it from a friend,_ came the additional message from Choi, as Hermann sat down at his work table, debating whether to read the interview or to return to bed immediately, and not brace the realm of the waking for another few days. 

And how very Newton-esque had that not been? 

It was not long before the popular press was fawning over Newton like he was some long-lost prodigal son returned, and he played on a narrative about mental health issues being overcome, of _his_ scars and achievements from the war, as he screamed into the microphone about a drowning world and strum his clever fingers over his guitar strings in a way that (allegedly) could make grown men weep, charming his audiences with the ability to look like a doe-eyed, drowned puppy.

Hermann looked at the pictures and avoided the radio like the plague. 

When his tenant Nadia brought home a Newt Geiszler record and asked him, “didn’t you used to work with this guy? This album _slaps,”_ he threatened to throw her out on the spot, if she ever played it while he was in the house. 

Another eighteen months went by while Hermann buried himself in research, went drinking with his colleagues and even made some of them his friends, and all the while Newton rose to fame in the periphery but became more and more of a somebody that Hermann used to know.

An idealistic romance. A friend only from circumstance. A colleague, a stranger in the night, a liar, a _poet,_ an error in judgement and a patch of insanity in Hermann’s life, best forgotten and rid of, and never spoken to again. The dreams waned, slowly, and changed from Newton coming back, to Hermann chewing Newton out, to Hermann simply dismissing him entirely if he approached.

As it should be. As it _would_ be, were Newton ever to come crawling back. Exactly as Hermann would act.

In theory.

And yet here he is again, chasing that indulgent fantasy, carrying flowers, of all things, ascending to a suite above the clouds in order to meet Newton again. 

Was he not done with reaching for the stars like a mere idiot? Does he not remember what rejection feels like when it wrings one inside out? Is he, Hermann Gottlieb, indeed a masochist and a fool?

He was in the lab when he received the message two nights ago, writing up his thoughts on the preliminary data from a drift experiment. He had been rather content, then; eyes running over brain-wave charts, his fingers drumming softly on the scrolling pad, one of his legs extended leisurely on the footstool under his desk. 

He had been eating a bun of some sort, and, since no one else was in the lab on this late friday afternoon, he had shared it with the robot vacuum that had come in and was now puttering around at the foot of his chair. 

His phone was in his bag on the floor by the door, muted lest he be disturbed by a superior, wanting to know his progress, or Nadia who had lost the cat again, or possibly found said cat, or one of the interns who, despite Hermann’s best efforts, found him somewhat approachable and would call him during office hours to ask questions about jaeger coding. 

Which was why he didn’t hear the call, but had he seen the caller-id, he would not have picked up. Would he?

“You have one new voicemail,” said Hermann’s laptop, inexplicably voiced by someone sounding exactly like John Cleese, of all people, and Hermann looked briefly at the notification message blinking in the top corner of his screen. Surely, Nadia had lost the cat again.

“Well, play it then,” Hermann said, and leaned back in his chair. He removed his glasses.

“This message contains video. Allow video?” John Cleese asked, and Hermann said, “yes, play the bloody thing,” and was abruptly faced with a close-up video shot of a grinning Newton Geiszler in red sunglasses.

Ever since, he has been in a state of shocked disbelief.

Even now, he is not fully sure what is driving him. 

All he knows is this:

Newton Geiszler is in Hong Kong. 

He wants to meet. 

Hermann is completely unable to decline. 

The elevator doors slide open, and Hermann walks out into the lobby. A plush rug mutes the sound of his feet and his cane as he makes his way over to the front desk, where the receptionist eyes him with an overly polite, overly friendly smile, and asks how they can help him. 

Hermann swallows. This is, somehow, the worst part.

“I was told to ask for a—a Mrs. Otachi? He—she? I’m expected, supposedly.”

The receptionist nods.

“Certainly, sir. That would be the Ritz-Carlton suite, on the 117th floor. Just take the elevator, and you can’t miss it.”

Hermann thanks him stiffly and retraces his steps to the elevator. He is followed by the woman who rode up with him, and she presses the button for floor 117. 

“You brought him flowers?” the woman asks, lifting an eyebrow. “Big fan, huh?”

“Oh, er, these?” Hermann says, embarrassed, shaking the bouquet slightly. “They’re for my mother. She’s just down the road.” 

The woman smiles at him, a little too friendly for Hermann’s comfort. 

“Oh how nice of you. They’re very pretty. She’ll be delighted.”

“I doubt it. She’s dead,” Hermann says.

When they emerge at the 117th floor, Hermann realises that he has entirely misjudged the situation. There’s a waiting area near the suite entrance, where a horde of journalists and photographers have set up shop. He almost stops dead in his tracks, overwhelmed by the sudden crowding of the room, but manages to just slow down in order to buy some time. Of course there would be journalists. Newton is a celebrity, now. 

He curses the man inwardly, and tries to bring his face into a pleasant expression, when a woman with a clipboard approaches him. She’s looking official and stressed, and she gives him a tired smile. Hermann imagines that working _for_ Newton may be even more difficult than working _with_ him. 

“Hi,” she says, tapping her clipboard with her pen. “I’m Diane. I can fit you into Mr. Geiszler’s schedule in about an hour, give you 15 minutes together. Which magazine are you from?”

“Uh,” Hermann says. He looks around. There’s a stack of glossy magazines on a table by the wall, and he reads off the one with the boldest letters. “Horse and Hound?”

Diane doesn’t even lift an eyebrow, just nods and puts it down on her time-table.

“And your name, sir?”

Hermann swallows. “Her—Hughmann Grantlieb, miss. Thank you.”

“Great. Take a seat, have a coffee. Someone will call you when you’re up. Good luck.” She shakes her head and moves on to register the woman who rode the elevator up with Hermann.  
There’s a chair slightly removed from the crowd of press folk, and Hermann collapses onto it, positioning himself with a view of the suite door. 

He hates this. Hates this so violently; what he and Newton had was private, secret. But unlimited. For years, it was just the two of them, confined in the belly of the shatterdome where no one else ever went unless they had no other choice. 

It had been intimate, even before they were intimate. Hermann had loved Newton, before he ever saw his face, had loved him even when they despised one another.

And now he’s here, and Newton is on the other side of that door. Hermann swallows. His knees bounce, up and down, up and down, and it aches all the way up in his hip. He clenches his fists and forces his knees down. Rests his cane across them.  
He debates leaving _(“this is self-sabotage, ridiculous, he’s going to mock you, leave, leave, leave”),_ all up and until someone calls out his fake name, twice, and lets him into the suite. 

“15 minutes,” they say, and Hermann doesn’t even register their face, because everything is rushing inside him. He gives a nod, and opens the door to an empty room. 

Or—empty would pushing it, perhaps, because there’s a sofa-group, a mahogany office desk, a dining table, pictures and ornaments on the walls, floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of the bay and Hong Kong, only slightly obscured by heavy clouds, a massive collection of flowers and mirrors and books and vases; but there’s nobody in there.

Hermann leans heavily on his cane and inches through the doorway. 

“Hello?” He says to no one.

He takes two steps forward and stops, admiring the room reluctantly. There’s a rustling behind a door on Hermann’s left, and Hermann freezes, body and mind stuck in the liminal space between fight and flight, in this purgatorial second before the door will inevitably open, and que sera sera. 

Hermann swallows and tightens his grip—sweaty—around the head of his cane, and he wonders, why, why on earth did he come here, unannounced, in the middle of the afternoon among reporters and fans and officials, like an idiot, obviously walking right into disaster, into further heartbreak, ripping up a mostly healed wound? Why is he doing this to himself? 

Newton is, by all accounts, an unhealthy companion, unreliable, and he has made it clear with his departure that their shared history was not enough to keep him—unless of course that their past _is_ enough, and _does_ transcend time and space and three brief years, that—Hermann shakes his head. 

The door in question swings open, and a man steps out, dragging a kaiju blue coloured blazer sleeve down to cover his tattooed wrist. Hermann takes him in all at once: He’s entirely in blue except for a white button-down tucked neatly into the waistband of his blue slacks, and his glasses that are a peculiar and clashing shade of red. His hair is long and brown, tied back into a knot exactly opposite the tip of his nose, with only a few strands escaping their confinement and cascading artistically across his forehead. His boots are polished and shines in the lamp light, he’s wearing a silver necklace that disappears below the untucked collar of his shirt, and he’s in the process of putting a heavy silver skull ring on his left ring finger. 

“Sorry to keep you waiting, man” Newton says, and looks up from his hands. “Nature called, and— _oh.”_

His eyes (green, Hermann knows they're green) widen behind his shades and his mouth goes slack. _“You.”_

“Yes, well—” Hermann says, swallowing. “Your message—”

He trails off, unsure of what to say. Newton looks different. Softer and sharper, at the same time. They suck their lower lips in between their teeth simultaneously. 

Then Newton grins and throws his blue arms out wide. 

“Good to see ya, bud. How you been? You look great. Is that a turtleneck you're wearing? _For me?_ You shouldn't have—”

Instantly annoyed, Hermann narrows his eyes. “What do you _want_ from me, Newton?” he says, harshly, and Newton’s grin falters for a second. 

“What I _want,_ Hermann? Is that really the first thing you're going to say to me after three years?” 

“Ex _cuse_ me?” Hermann takes a step forward and lifts his chin so he can look down at Newton along the bridge of his nose. Newton looks up at him, grin already back in place. 

“Aw, dude. Are _those_ for me?” He taps at the crinkly plastic foil around the flowers in Hermann's hand, and Hermann looks at them, momentarily confused as to where they have come from. 

“I, er—yes. But I can see you're already well-equipped.”

Hermann stares as Newton takes the flowers off his hand and unwraps the bouquet. His chest feels tight as all the biting remarks conjured up on sleepless nights floods his throat and refuse to pass over his lips. 

Newton’s hands, once objects of intense affection, now looking uncharacteristically soft, and well cared for, nails painted in a dark variant of the blue of his clothes, cradle the flowers. 

“I appreciate the gesture of human affection, Hermann, but coming from you, I have no idea what it means,” Newton says. His hand holding the flowers falls to his side, and he takes the last step that closes the remaining space between them. Hermann can feel the heat coming off Newton’s front through the damp woolen sweater on his chest. 

He shivers. 

Newton reclines his head just so and furrows his brow, lips pouting in a thinking frown, shaded eyes scrutinising Hermann's face. 

“Say something, man. Why are you here? What do _you_ want?”

“I don't know,” Hermann whispers, barely audible above the sound of blood rushing in his ears. He never wants to see Newton again. He wants to shove him against the wall and smash his mouth against those unreasonably pink lips. He wants to slap him across the face and leave, he wants to stay, stay, stay. He wants to scream. 

He does none of these things. He closes his eyes. 

“We don't have a lot of time, Hermann,” Newton says, his free hand landing on Hermann's neck and pulse point, _that bastard._ “‘cause I'm going to a _thing_ after I deal with all these journalists. So I'll give you some options. I could sneak out. We could have dinner. You're so agitated. You could to hit me with that cane or kiss me, while you have the chance.” 

“Damn you,” Hermann says and grits his teeth, hand clenching around his cane. He runs a quick assessment of pros and cons:

If he kisses Newton now, there's no way back from the pit of emotion he has spent the better part of his entire _life_ avoiding. He will spend weeks and months in shame thinking about how he knowingly allowed Newton to toy with him, how he allowed his desires to overcome any and all self restraint he’s ever practiced, how he bared his neck and allowed Newton to rip out his throat once more. It is the most stupid, most self-destructive, most irresponsible thing, he could ever bring himself to do. 

If he doesn't, he will grow old and grey and cold alone, and Newton might never call him again. 

Hermann's cane drops to the carpet with a muted thud. 

Newton’s mouth is warm and wet and tastes like bubblegum.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued! 
> 
> (I promise)
> 
> Kudos and comments are highly appreciated, but mostly I'm just pleased that you've read this <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt pops out to have dinner with Hermann.

_ You wanna know if I know why? _  
_ I can't say that I do, _  
_ I don't understand the evil eye, _  
_ Or how one becomes two. _  
_ And I just can't recall what started it all, _  
_ Or how to begin in the end, _  
_ I ain't here to break it, _  
_ Just see how far it will bend_

 

 

_(Newt)_

 

There's a well-dressed crowd around him. Chattering, loud and nonsensical, voices unaligned. Newt's sitting at a table in the middle of a room, unspeakably lonely, his mind literal lightyears away. He’s sifting through memories alien to this time and place, thoughts stuck on another world. The people who lived there always talked, talked talked, but never fully understood one another, never managed anything at all, because they fought each other instead of preserving themselves. 

If only they had come together and been of one mind, they might not have died screaming. 

Newt checks his watch. 

Half past eight: it's time to blow this joint. He licks his lips and blinks himself back into this dimension, taste and sound and vision surging back and Newt steels himself for it; there was music in his brain and sensory input is harsh and rough in comparison. 

He pinches his thigh to ground his mind in its vessel and rises from his chair, boots clicking on the marble floor, unresting hands patting down the front of his blue blazer. 

Communication device. 

‘Money’. 

Rectangular plastic door-opener. 

 _Phone, wallet, keycard. Come on, remember your_ words, _pal._

“Excuse me,” he says to the faceless individuals around the table, smiles, waves, and swerves out of there. 

It's awful how out of practice he’s become. 

And it’s awful how much noise rich, well-educated humans can make, how much time they spend talking. Now drifting, Newt muses on his way to the wardrobe, that's something else. When you drift with someone, there's no need to talk—no need to argue your point. When a whole collective of minds are connected, everyone understands—everyone agrees. It's _instant,_ and it's music, and Newt would go down on a UPS guy for a little delivery of his equipment right about now. 

 _Ridiculous_ that you can't bring officially dead alien tissue on international flights. Truly. 

The clerk hands him his leather jacket, and Newt tips him. 

“I was never here,” he says, shrugs the protective extra hide around his shoulders and grabs an umbrella at random from an umbrella stand next to the exit. 

Then he strides out into the rain and flags down a driverless cab. 

“Welcome to Taxi Hong Kong,” it greets him, and Newt leans back in his seat. “Please choose a destination. For map selection—”

“Take me to the bone slums, baby,” Newt says. He runs his fingers over the dashboard. “And don't accelerate too fast, I get car-sick like a motherfucker. Can you play some rock music? You got Spotify? Youtube? I’d like the [Virgin Magnetic Material remix of Make It Wit Chu](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg14Ocs03xA), please and thank.”

The car pulls away from the curb and accelerates gently, and the dreamy electronic beat flows from the car speakers. “Music selected. Choose an ad-free ride for only—”

“No ads, thank you, dude. You’re a pretty neat car, you know that?” 

“Thank you. I am a 2019 Nissan Leaf, 100% electrical. Would you like to activate sightseeing mode?”

Newt laughs. 

“Nah, I know Hong Kong like the back of my hand. Used to live here, back during the war. Not that I got to get out much, but I’ve seen the sights. I've seen them all the way from _space._ Sort of, anyway.”

“Are you an astronaut?” the car asks, and Newt snorts. 

“Naw, man, I’m not,” he says. “Sometimes I think I wanted to be at some point, but these days I think that was a different person all together. As I said, acceleration makes me sick. You’re quite inquisitive for a car, aren’t you?”

“Just making conversation,” the car says.

Newt nods slowly and leans back in his seat, running his fingertips over the plush upholstery. Fat raindrops are hitting the windshield over and over and over again, faster than the wipers can keep up with. The neon city lights shine blurry in the droplets as Newt speeds through the once familiar streets of Hong Kong. The route to the bone slums has changed slightly, a lot of re- and deconstruction still going on since the last time Newt was here. 

Back then he was still mostly _Newt,_ because the first drift didn’t manage to change him _much._ He knows, he knows this, knows it in his bones that he is not who or what he used to be, excitable, irresponsible, _lonely,_ but in an entirely different way than he is now;

Now, he is more satelite than human, he thinks, equal parts Newton and Other, equal parts chatter and song.

 _That’s pathetic,_ his mind provides dryly, and Newt licks his lips, giddy all of a sudden.

He will have to stop spacing _out._

That’s the problem with the infrequent drifting, Newt thinks; he’s not _sharp,_ he’s distractible. Fresh out of a drift, he’s so focused, transcendent, the ultimate Newt and the ultimate other. But when the high wanes, so does the secure feeling of self. Selves? 

The fuck does Newt know, these days. 

Well, there is one thing. 

He misses Hermann so much he could scream. 

 

* * *

 

Newt pays the cab in crypto and walks out into the rain. As soon as the cab has rolled off, he realises that he’s left his stolen umbrella in the passenger seat. 

The path to the restaurant is winding through alleys and side streets, crowded with humans even in this weather, and it comes natural to Newt, winding in and out of the way and around corners, the route easy like small blue dots on a map in the back of his mind. 

When he finally walks into the hole in the wall—the restaurant is not much more—he’s soaked from the downpour, hair smattered to his scalp, and the wall of heat and smells and noise from inside makes his body shiver involuntary. Something Hermann-esque inside him predicts the onset of a cold only a few days in the future, and Newt almost sneers at it out loud, before he catches himself. 

 _Public appearance mode, please and thank you,_ he tells himself. He scans the restaurant and his eyes find the owner of a familiar set of ears and a terrible haircut threatening to curl, and he is at once struck with an all-consuming affection so overwhelming he has to hold onto the doorframe. 

Hermann sits in a booth by the far wall, visibly fretting with his hands, staring hard at the menu. He is still wearing the turtle neck sweater from before, dark line of his neck enhancing the sharpness of his jaw, his leg bouncing restlessly under the table. Newt swallows, and tries to will the heat rising to his cheeks away. 

_Hermann._

Something is unwinding inside him, a sadness sweet and desperate, and Newt feels drunker than any amount of booze consumed in the last three years has made him. 

Hermann kissed him. 

Threw his cane to the floor and kissed Newt right on the mouth, in the middle of the suite, not caring that Diane or someone with a camera could walk in on them any second. It made Newt feel so physical he nearly collapsed on the spot, made him remember almost forgotten sensations:

Hermann’s white-knuckled grip on Newt’s bouncing thigh; a warm breath ghosting against his ear; Hermann’s fingertips on Newt’s temples, drawing forth the ghost-drift they had shared in the few first days or weeks after they’d lost— _won, they’d won—_ the war. 

It’s like being dropped from a great height into a deep pool of water, a warm ocean enveloping his mind and decelerating his free-fall. 

Seeing Hermann now brings all of that back again, and Newt feels the quickening of his pulse and the shortening of his breath, feels the raw animalistic desire to consume the man entirely well up inside him, mind and body aching to take him all in. 

Everything around him seems to dim and blur, but Hermann remains sharp as he turns his head and their eyes lock. 

“Hey asshole, you goin’ in or what?” a voice says behind him, and someone knocks into his shoulder, ripping Newt’s attention away from Hermann’s doe eyes. Newt turns, and looks the guy up and down. He’s tall and broad, and something inside Newt wants to rip him apart, flip a table and knock him over the head with a bottle. He can’t tell whether it’s  alien instincts or the bullied kid he once was, or maybe a little bit of both, but he’s been practicing this. Acting casual.

“Fuck off,” he sneers and pushes past the guy, ducking his head so as not to be recognised. He winds around the tables, over to Hermann’s booth, and stops at the end of the table. 

“Hey man,” he says. Hermann stares up at him, fingers crumpling the laminated menu, his hair drying off in cowlicks that make Newt’s chest constrict. “Why’s it that every _single_ time I go outside in Hong Kong, it’s raining?” 

“Some people might argue that it’s karma,” Hermann says, his eyes flicking down Newt’s soaked shirt front and back up again. He jerks his head a little, indicating the seat across from him. “Sit, and let’s order. I’m starving.”

Newt peels his jacket off and slides in across from Hermann. The booth is narrow and their feet knock together, and Newt watches Hermann jump involuntarily. He has a sudden, sinking feeling that this is going to be harder than he thought. 

Hermann has put down the menu, so Newt picks it up and scans the item list, without really seeing it. “Pad thai?” he asks, and Hermann nods stiffly. “For old time’s sake.”

“Shrimp for me,” Hermann says airily, and Newt snorts, because _duh._ He knows _that._

“Astonishing,” he says in mock-British accent, licking his lips and going over the beverage section. He needs a drink to calm this sudden onset of nerves. Newt can’t remember being this nervous in forever; not with the calm, über-Mensch-high that he’s been riding for the last vast amount of time. He peeks at Hermann over the menu. Has it really been three years? Hermann looks a little older, maybe; a few more lines in his face, a little softness around the eyes, and his hair is a little longer. But his jaw and cheekbones are sharp as ever, his eyes clear and intelligent and framed by his ridiculous eyelashes. 

Newt swallows. 

Seems that he’s still got it bad.

“I’m having a beer,” he says, his vocal chords straining weirdly around the words that are bubbling from his lips. “You want a beer? They've still got that one, you know, in the blue bottle, whose name I can't pronounce, but now that the world ain't ending they've extended the drinks menu, and—” 

Hermann plucks the menu off his hands and Newt shuts his mouth. Grips around the edge of the table. 

The following awkward silence in which Hermann reads the drinks menu is interrupted by the arrival of the server, who takes their orders (two pad thai, shrimp for Hermann, tofu for Newt, and two large draft beers) and smiles at Newt like they know each other. Newt doesn't remember the guy at all, but he _did_ have other things to think about last time he was in town. 

The server leaves with their menu, and they're left without anything to hide the gaping metaphorical chasm between them. Newt taps his fingers on the table top and tries not to stare at Hermann's mouth. 

“So—how've you been?” he asks, and yeah, he knows it's weak, but what's he going to do? 

Hermann raises his eyebrows in clear disdain. “Good,” he replies. Crosses his arms over his chest. He's wearing a black blazer over his turtleneck sweater with sleeves that are a little too narrow, so that they strain just so around his biceps, and Newt's stomach does another flip. He licks his lips. Wasn't there some other reason he wanted to see Hermann? Something important? He closes his eyes and tries to remember, but it's gone. Just a raw, desperate need remains. 

“That's good,” Newt says, nodding along with the words. “I'm glad you had the time, man, I've—” _missed you? Written all these lovesongs for you? Been so alone even though I'm never really alone?_ He swallows. “I was worried our schedules wouldn't fit, while I'm here.”

“And how long are you?” Hermann says. He's leaning back, clenching his fists, anger coming off him in waves. It's a slightly different brand than the anger Newt remembers from the lab times, the set of Hermann's jaw meaner and colder than it used to be, and it’s terrible. Newt's so fucking into it. 

“Little more than two weeks, initially,” he says. “Then I have a thing in Shanghai. A science thing.”

“A science thing,” Hermann says. “Thought you'd given that up.”

“You wish,” Newt grins. 

Hermann arches a brow and says, “Do I?” while the corners of his mouth turn downwards. Their server arrives with their drinks then, and Newt thanks him profusely—anything to loosen the bitter frown on Hermann's face. 

He takes a long drink of his beer, and looks down into the glass. They can bounce back from this. They've done it before. Hermann _kissed_ him. That has to count for something. 

“You know Shao Industries?” Newt asks when he's collected himself a bit. Hermann nods slowly at him. “Thought you might, they're doing like, commercial Jaeger tech and military drones and shit. But they've also got some hot research in biotech that I'd like to stick my fingers into. So I'm meeting with miss Shao herself. You ever saw her? She's like, 17 or something. Prodigy. Über capitalist bitch, though.” He takes another long sip of beer, leans back and stretches his legs so Hermann is _bound_ to knock their shins together if he stretches his legs. 

“Miss Shao's 24,” Hermann says mildly. He has uncrossed his arms and is holding his glass with both hands, looking past Newt. Newt swallows. Takes another drink. 

It continues like that for a while: Newt babbles, Hermann replies in single sentences and glares. Newt drinks, and they repeat the pattern. By the time their food arrives, he's emptied his glass and orders another, feeling a little fuzzy around the edges. It's getting harder not just to crawl over the table and kiss the stupid frown of Hermann's stupid mouth, right then and there. 

“I've missed you,” Newt says a little later. He puts both his hands flat on the table, as much a cards-on-the-table-like gesture as a way to steady himself. He's a little drunk. 

Hermann, always the one superior in terms of alcohol tolerance (bloody _germans),_ stares at him in sober disbelief. Newt thinks he's sober, anyway. He seems like it. 

“I'm serious, man. I miss you all the time, yeah? No one bothers to yell at you when you pay their salaries, or when they think you're super important and everything you do is amazing.” Newt reaches over and takes Hermann's hands in his own. They're cold. “And we were—” 

“Exactly,” Hermann says quietly. He squeezes Newt's hands and lets them go. “We _were,_ Newton, and then you left. Without a word.”

Newt's head suddenly feels like it's going to split in two. Hermann almost blurs out. 

 

* * *

 

**(2025)**

 

Newt quits the PPDC while sporting a hangover so intense that it's a miracle he doesn't puke on acting Marshal Hercules Hansen's shoes in the process. 

It’s the final thing that needs doing: The data he needs has been safely backed up and sent overseas and erased from the PPDC intranet. He has packed and shipped out his boxes of equipment, and there's a plane leaving tonight. He looks at Hansen's broken arm in its cask, focuses on distributing his weight equally on each foot. 

“I guess you could insist on my three months-notice, but Herc, do you really wanna do that? I mean, I've been coming to work drunk, I could probably get diagnosed with PTSD in a heartbeat, and you think my voice is annoying.” Newt runs a hand through his greasy hair and adjusts his glasses. Hansen leans back in his chair. It's not the first time Newt quits the PPDC: He has been standing in this office, giving a variation of the speech about once a year in all his time in the Hong Kong ‘dome. Pentecost would listen patiently and intently, and then the Marshal would give Newt a glass of water, ask him how he was doing, and tell him to take the day off and think about whether he really wanted to leave. Hansen is not gonna play psychologist with Newt, though, that much is obvious. “I'm leaving tonight; you can try and take legal action, which won't pay off, or you could just let me go. All the new people will fucking love it if you let me go.”

Hansen is silent for a long while, no doubt rejoicing with the idea of being rid of Newt. _It's mutual,_ Newt thinks, swallowing down a wave of nausea. 

“What about Gottlieb?” 

 _“Doctor_ Gottlieb,” Newt snaps, surprising himself. “What about him?” 

“Is he jumping ship too? I need to know of I have a science division or not.”

“Do you _see_ him here, quitting on the spot, dude?” Newt spits, at once gripped by a hot rage. “No, you don't, do you? So don't ask me about Hermann, don't ask me about shit, 'cause I'm fucking out, okay?” 

Hansen looks baffled, and Newt shudders, headache and fatigue and nausea taking his balance for a sudden little spin. He's not entirely functional. Nope. Hasn't been for a while, and he's paranoid and anxious and wants to disappear. Most of all, he wants a drink, but he needs to be clear  for the next step of extricating himself from the grasp of the PPDC. 

“Alright then, kid,” Hansen says.  “I'm gonna need your badge before you go, though.”

“I'll drop it off in an hour or two,” Newt says, then leaves. He staggers back to his bunk, where there's only his laptop and a duffel bag left. Everything else has been shipped out; The only proof of Newt's presence is the words written in black sharpie on the wall over the bed: _Fuck you and your capitalist shit society._ Not exactly poetry, but Newt meant it, and if that’s to be his legacy after he’s gone from the place, that’s fine by him. 

Newt grabs his laptop and sits down on the bed. He types in his password. Then he logs in to the PPDC database, and erases his own medical records, phone numbers, family records, and anything substantial in his personnel file. It occurs to him that he could have just faked a three months-notice and put it in the database, if Hansen had decided to be a bitch about it. 

“Wooosh,” he says, and leans back against the wall. 

He has a feeling someone is gonna be upset very soon, but in a few hours, Newt will be sleeping on a plane, and all of this will be behind him. 

He has left saying goodbye to Hermann for last. He doesn’t want to do it. There is such a dull ache to it. He pops a xanax and stares at the wall for a while, and then grabs his bag and his laptop and trudges down to the lab. 

Before he even knows it, he's buckled into his seat and finally getting that drink, 30,000 feet in the air. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _To be continued..._  
>  Thank you for reading!


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